


Dec 12: Bad Judgment

by kuro49



Series: White Collar Advent calendar drabbles [12]
Category: White Collar
Genre: M/M, White Collar Advent 2014, episode tag s06e02: return to sender, episode tag s06e05: whack-a-mole
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-12
Updated: 2014-12-12
Packaged: 2018-03-01 06:46:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2763578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuro49/pseuds/kuro49
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Moz stuck around, he would be saying something along the lines of <i>if you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dec 12: Bad Judgment

**Author's Note:**

> The amount of Neal/Keller interactions we got this season drove this :DD

To Neal, Matthew Keller’s the boy his mother never warned him about.

To be the blue collar version of him, and to have the history that they have. Matthew Keller, standing out among the Pink Panthers, and to see him turn around, black jacket zipped up, his hands shoved deep inside his pockets.

No, Neal is hardly angry when he finally sees that healed cut and the chip implanted just beneath the skin.

“Just like old times, huh Caffrey?”

And with that same line, Neal can only imagine his younger self, meeting Matthew in the Grand Casino of Monaco for the first time. To say that he’s completely taken by him is an understatement. At a time like then, at an age like that, there hasn’t been anyone outside of Moz that isn’t three, four steps behind him, walking to a pace Neal sets.

No, Matthew Keller makes a good plan, and this is not about to be his end game because there is no world in which Keller would place his freedom in the hands of the Interpol.

When he shows up in his apartment, Neal isn’t stupid enough to wonder what else he is after. (And if Moz stuck around, he would be saying something along the lines of _if you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas_.) Neal isn’t about to say he’s wrong.

Because when Matthew extends his hand out for Neal to shake, Neal reaches for his left, wraps his fingers around Keller’s forearm until he is biting back the pain. 

Where he takes him, they both know (his back hitting high-count sheets, his hand snagging in another tailored shirt, Neal isn't sweet when he leans down to kiss the sharp hiss from between Keller's teeth). Where he has him, they aren’t about to find out, not for a few more weeks.

 

And looking back, they haven’t come such a long way from their last job together after all.

This time, Keller might not be the one to pull the trigger but there is a man dead.

It still isn’t Neal Caffrey, and that’s got to mean something for con men like them.

 

XXX Kuro


End file.
